The Return
by Sypoth Sithicus
Summary: He never thought he'd come back here, back to the beginning, but in the end history is nothing more than one circle after another.


Disclaimer: I don't own sonic, this is mostly to prove that I can write a better story than the current sega authors can while blending in older, more developed and more popular characters into the series without ruining them. If any one from sega is interested you know how to contact me, but I will warn you, I can't sure over the characters since they are not mine, but I can over the concept of this story line because the idea that spawned it is my idea, I'm not being a dick, I just want to know that I'm given credit for something I wrote.

Return Home

"Damn that Hedgehog." Dr. Eggman yelled as the blue blur quickly raced through his newest version of the egg carrier, a specialty crafted air fortress, one of many in a long series that the blue hedgehog had so far destroyed. "Drop all blast doors, seal all the hatches and eject and blast the compartment that hedgehog is in to shreds, I want that rodent gone." The dictator yelled at his robot crew through an onboard microphone.

"What about his friends' sir?" One of the more sentient robots asked.

"Heard them into another compartment and Eject then destroy that one too." Dr. Eggman was tired of loosing one air fortress after another because of some small unforeseen problem or centralized critical part that the hedgehogs vulpine friend always seemed to find, and the hedgehog always seemed to destroy, and so with that in mind he designed this fortress with a modular design, each compartment had it's own identical equipment capable of sustaining itself and the carrier afloat even with over half the modules destroyed.

"Now that's not very nice, you know you'd get more visitors if you laid out a welcome mat instead of lasers ad offered them some food an drink instead of a quick and painful death." Sonic said from where he stood next to the main console.

"What? But how did you?" Dr. Eggman said looking down on his arch nemesis.

"Cockpit module has been isolated, ejecting and training chaos lasers now." The lasers were a vast improvement on earlier models thanks to the power of the chaos emeralds, focusing light through them like a normal laser not only amplified it but also gave one the opportunity to redirect the volley or redistribute the energy in any way the mad doctor saw fit, luckily for the madman the Chaos Emeralds needed to use them were on this module.

"What? You fools, belay that order." It came too late as the cockpit had already disengaged from the rest of the egg carrier, from where he sat Dr. Eggman watched as yet another module unmistakably the sub bridge he built as a back up ejected, undoubtedly with the insipid Hedgehogs friends aboard, and began to chase after this module.

Watching helplessly the evil doctor could practically see and hear the whole plan of these insipid pests being made. Looking out the window it was confirmed as his precious Egg carrier then changed direction, for a nearby narrow valley that was uninhabited. He came to only one conclusion, the vulpine had found the weak point in his design again, and by figuring out the new egg carriers design and having the annoying rodent make his way to the cockpit module as quickly as possible so that it would be ejected thus severing his direct link and therefore his direct control of the ship. From there they would lock him out and reprogram the systems of the ship putting it on a course that would ensure its complete destruction, save two units.

"What was that saying again? Can't make an Omelet without breaking a few eggs? Now hand over the Chaos Emeralds, or else." Sonic threatened him.

"Damn you Hedgehog, I'll kill you. I'll kill you and make sure your friends are quick to follow." Pressing a button on his control panel several latches around the bridge to unclasp and a plate of armor to cover the dictator as the master control unit lifted from the floor of the ship to form into yet another powered suit for the mad man, it appeared to be a sideways egg with a pair of arms protruding out of the module in the back as well as a set of reverse knee jointed legs from the bottom. "You will never defeat me and my Egg shell you bastard rodent."

"I've heard that one before." Sonic took off as the doctor began to blindly fire at the blue blur.

Sonic made several attempts to bust through it's armor whenever an opening appeared but some sort of field prevented him from doing anything more than bouncing off it's outer shell, his speed being the only thing preventing the large suit from grabbing him and throwing him around like a rag doll. The Hedgehog quickly took to hiding behind consoles as much as possible resulting in the destruction of nearly all of them and revealing were the good doctor hid several of the Chaos emeralds, which Sonic was more than happy to gather.

Mid-way through the fight the module began to buck and heave to the left, so many of its primary devices damaged in the fight that it could no longer maintain its stability.

"Well, Hedgehog, it's time for me to take my leave. I would say it had been nice knowing you, but that would be a lie, I'll be taking back those emeralds now." Eggman taunted as he swiped the four emeralds Sonic held in his hands before launching through the ceiling, Sonic attempted to grab hold of the legs to the Egg shell but the doctor quickly detached them before Sonic could get any further onto the robotic suit.

As Sonic fell he saw something in the distance, the other module that had been launched from the egg carrier before its destruction. Doing a back flip and trusting in his best friends abilities he landed on the other module safely just in time to watch as the one he was just in crashed to the ground. Making a motion with his hands Tails quickly acknowledged and descended to the crash site.

(Note: these are actually breaks in the story to change perspective or to prevent time span shrinkage, I usually use asterisks or zeros and ones to do this, but I figured I'd do this for a while on this story so I can describe how things would work if this was a game.)

Tails set the module down flawlessly, his ability to fly anything always impressed the blue hedgehog. The young fox was so smart it was almost scary at times, there was the rare occasion he worried the fox was going to turn out like the demented dictator, but always put those aside. Jumping off the one he was currently riding the blue hedgehog ran towards the wreck of the other Module and tore away at it, it wasn't long before he located the missing 3 Chaos Emeralds, Blue, Grey, and Purple.

Sighing that he now possessed at least three of the seven he took a break and looked at his surroundings. The mad man was always trying to use these jewels for something, and it always wound up causing untold numbers of people an unbelievable amount of suffering. Secretly he himself was a victim of their curse, both the doctor and the young anthrop had uses for the fabled jewels. But unlike the Doctor, Sonics ambitions were more aimed at preventing anybody else from getting hurt by their incredible power, memories of his past filtered in through his thoughts like a brief trickle of a stream.

Grassy fields, tall structures that blended with the environment, a friendly city full of fun, life, and chilidogs. Damn what he wouldn't do for one of those special chili dogs from his most favorite stand. A childhood friend, one that he would always play with, they were inseparable, a family member that made the coolest stuff, the coup de gra invasion that toppled such a wonderful city giving rise to an evil empire with it as the capital, his resolve, among the flames of the ruined city, a secret vow to prevent this from ever happening again, ever.

"Earth to Sonic, answer me this instant." Amy broke him out of his reverie.

"What is it Amy?" Sonic wasn't very fond of the pink Hedgehog, they had become friends over the years, but she just wasn't his type, and his constant running away from her and her obsession over him didn't seem to get through to her at all that he wasn't interested in her that way.

"Well, when we were up there we saw the lights of a nearby city and I was wondering if you would take me shopping then we could get a bite to eat and…" She didn't get any farther than that.

"Sorry Amy, maybe next time, Eggman swiped the other four emeralds and now I've gotta stop him." Sonic said while dashing off.

"Sonic the hedgehog, get back here and go on a date with me." Amy yelled.

"How long do you think He'll be gone?" Knuckles asked Tails.

"As long as Amy's here." Tails responded. "I don't know why he doesn't just give in and go out with her for nothing more than to just shut her up."

"Should we go give back up?" Rouge asked, her and Shadow had been on a mission to study the new Egg Carrier as a potential threat when they ran into Sonic, it become so common an occurrence that they were beginning to wonder if G.U.N. was also using them to keep track of the fastest thing alive, and the only hope they seemed to have against the threat of Eggman.

"No, we should report back to headquarters and inform them of the Egg Carriers destruction." Shadow simply stated as he turned and began to make his way back to the module, the whole time a mechanical eye hidden behind a red visor kept silent vigil over the small group, analyzing, waiting for the right time.

(top, bottom, left, and right are based on the four main action buttons for playstation and X-box style controllers, I'll refer to the four buttons on the front at right and left, top and bottom, D-pad will be referred as D-anything, and analogs are A-right A-left.)

Sonic sped through the field effortlessly in the direction the Egg Shell had flown, he was running, faster, and faster, one mistake now and his momentum would make sure he was a pancake before he could have a chance to recover. The tall grass obscured his vision as he ran through the field, suddenly, almost as if instinct took over he dodged a boulder hidden in the grass and then quickly leapt over a small chasm in the ground that was hidden by the tall grass. Skidding to a halt the speedster began to scratch his head.

'Now how did I know those were there?' he began to think, to remember everyplace he had been that was like that. A memory flashed, him and his friend were playing in the grass, a simple game of catch me if you can, he would always fall for them hiding behind or on top of the rock, above the grass and one day they were wrestling, and his friend fell. Recognition practically slapped him in the face as he realized just where he was, and just as quickly as the shock had come, it was followed by a deep dread as he realized just how much danger his friends were in as he quickly sped back the way he came.

(Swatbot: Appearances are truly deceiving as these robots are quick to prove, underneath their large exterior is a super advanced endo structure allowing for surprising agility and swiftness. Characterized by their dome shaped heads these superior machines are difficult to produce, however there are three distinct models, the standard dull metallic models that are only armed with Lasers, the Stealthy black models known as shadow bots that aside from standard laser weaponry also carry an assortment of missiles as well as a cloaking unit, and the sleeker more streamlined silver toned models that have less armor, but can carry more weapons and are the fastest of these units.)

The sound of turbine engines firing up caught every ones attention as a grey tone humanoid robot quickly escaped from its hiding place under a log. Quickly aiming for the three near the wrecked ship it held out both arms firing lasers from its forearms. These lasers grazed the edge of Amy's dress and one of Tails' tails. Shadow was quick to respond by firing his twin pistol at it, not a singly bullet struck the robot. As it approached its targets a single gloved fist with twin spikes connected with the upper dome of the things head, leaving a massive dent and the robot quickly spun out of control before landing next to the wreckage just behind Tails.

"What is that thing?" Amy screamed out loud having been startled by the sudden attack.

"Forget about what it is, I wanna know what it's made of." Knuckles said while nursing his hand. "I've punched through walls of titanium without feeling a thing, then along comes this thing and not only do I only make a dent, but I think I also dislocated my wrist."

"Here, let me take a look at it." Rouge said as she began to examine the Echidnas wrist.

"Doesn't look like any of Eggmans robots that I know of, is it a new model?" Shadow asked glaring at it from across the field as Tails examined the seemingly disabled machine.

"I don't know, I can't find any access panels to see how it works, Looks like its armor was poured onto it to make one solid piece." Tails said tapping his fingers on the hard chest plate.

Pulling his hand away from Rouge Knuckles began to speak again. "Watch out, it could still be working. Shadow, put a few bullets into it just to make sure."

"Gladly." Shadow said loading up a couple clips of his special ammunition and taking aim.

In the distance Sonic was rushing towards them when he made out the Swatbot lying on the ground near his friends and hoped he wasn't too late, knowing of their dangerous nature he shouted a warning to them. "Get away from that thing."

But before anyone could respond and even faster than the black hedgehog could squeeze off a shot though the robot came back to life and grabbed Tails by his unburnt tail and fired up the jets located on the ankles of it's boots and took off. Shortly after an egg shaped transport craft flew into view and the robot was quick to dock with it, before anyone knew it the ship was gone, and so was the young fox, seemingly forever.

(Hover Unit: An egg shaped machine used to carry swatbots and prisoners back and forth, armed with a pair of turrets on both the top and bottom of the ship it can defend against most attacks. It had a bot loading bay in the bottom to catch flying swatbots and a pair of side hatches to allow prisoners in and out of it.)

In the thick forest two pairs of eyes were watching the inbound Hover Unit, it was coming back from a strange crash sight in the distance and with how short of a time had passed that meant only one thing, prisoners were taken to be used as slaves. Reaching into their backpack one of the female pair pulled out a spear gun looking device with a powerful rare earth magnet on the end, taking aim and launching as soon as the Hover unit was close by it quickly attached to the side, and the two individuals quickly used the chain hanging from the end to their advantage as the scalers they brought with them made for a quick accent.

Once they had reached the end of the chain one pulled back their left arm, and in a single punch was able to tear a hole in the side of the craft big enough for the second to go though. Once inside the ship the two swat bots that had been hanging from the back of the ship were disengaged and were about to take the intruders hostage when the first one in performed a low sweep with her leg knocking both robots to the ground, in the mean time the other one had entered the ship and was ripping open the prisoner transport tubes in the front of the craft.

"Ah don know, these ahll seem pretty ehmpty ta me." The young woman said in a heavy southern accent.

"Keep looking, there has got to be a prisoner somewhere." The other said, while rolling backwards with one of the swat bots and kicking it out of the hole they had made.

Tails, having been placed in one of the unopened tubes heard the voices and began to pound on the walls of the metal cylinder.

"Hey, is there anybody out there, if you can hear me, let me out of this thing." Seconds later the hatch of his prison was torn off.

"Well, Ah do declare, this one that waza clangin is a gold mine." Said the female to her partner. "A yohngin too, come on, don't be afraid, you're safe now." She knelt down and was holding out her arms.

"Hey, don't treat me like a kid, and for the record, I'm not scared." Tails tried to defend himself

"How cute, but onlay a kid would say something like thaa." She seemingly laughed out.

"Bunny, enough patronizing, we have to get out of here and now." The other one said as she slung the other swat bot over her shoulder and into the housing of the main flight computer.

"Right, well suga, like it or not yoah commin with me." The one identified as Bunny said grabbing Tails with her right arm and running for the hole in the side of the ship.

The other one jumped out of the hole first and as for the one dragging him, she instead grabbed the end of the spear, used it to swing herself against the side of the hover unit then with her massive strength ripped it off before leaping for the ground. At this point Tails realized just how far up he was, looking down he caught a glimpse of the other individual, she was what appeared to be a cross between a squirrel and a chipmunk with brown fur and red hair, she wore a full body skin tight black suit along with a loose fitting blue belt and a back pack, her medium length hair was pulled into a short pony tail, he still couldn't see the one that was holding him.

The pair pulled strings located on their back packs and each one released a parachute. The three anthrops floated n the air for a short while before a large explosion overhead send flaming shrapnel through the air as the hover unit exploded. Bunny was lucky to be out of range already, however the other individual wasn't so lucky as a piece of flaming debris sliced through her chute putting the young woman into a freefall spin as the other two gasped.

"Oh, no I gotta help." Tails said while struggling against Bunnies arm.

"Ahnd how do you suppose you can do that?" Bunny said struggling to keep him from falling out of her grip.

"Trust me; I do this all the time." Tails said as he finally struggled out of her grip and instantly began using his name sakes to quickly catch up to the falling individual and n a single scoop caught one of her hands.

"Oh mah stars, you can fly?" Bunny said flabbergasted at the sight before her.

"Yeah, now I'm confused, who's the one rescuing who?" said the woman in his grip.

"Well, as I tried telling you before, my name is Tails, and I'm a very well known hero back where I come from." He said with a grin on his face. "And you are?"

"Sally, former princess of Mobotropolis and current leader of the Knothole freedom fighters." She responded, and Tails couldn't help but notice her bright blue eyes.

"Ahm Bunny, another of the Knothole freedom fighters, nice ta meet you. Say, can ya tell us about the outside world, cuz livin in a tree you don't hear all that much news." Bunny said happily from where she was floating.

For the first time tails could get a good look at her, she was as her name implied, a rabbit, her tan fur complimented her green eyes. She wore a pair of boots and jeans and a white sleeveless shirt behind a thin dark brown vest fitted with pockets, but his eyes also caught the glint of metal, and that's when his attention was drawn to her robotic left arm.

"Oh will ya quit starin at it. Ya'll act like yohve never seen a robot arm befowa." Bunny said noticing where the young fox's attention was drawn.

"Sorry, I've seen them, just not on a living person. What kind of accident was it?" Tails asked feeling guilty about maybe touching on a sore subject.

"Well Ah never, this is my actual left arm thank you very much, and twas no accident that made it what it is." Bunny said offendedly.

"Oh, sorry about that, I was just wondering about it is all." Tails said looking away.

"Don't worry so much, it's just a very touchy subject for her, for allot of us. That's why all the survivors of Mobotropolis have hidden out here in the forest and formed a group called the freedom fighters. To prevent something like that from ever happening again." Sally explained to the young fox as they touched ground.

"Well then, what are those strange robots called then?" Tails said now that the three of them had seemed to warm up.

"Swat bots." Sally practically spat the word. "Leftovers from Dr. Robotnik and his evil empire."

Robotnik, now that was a name he knew all to well. When he had first met Sonic the hedgehog had referred to the madman by that name several times, then there was Shadow who was engineered by a scientist with a similar last name. Tails had later found out that Eggman was the great grandson of the late Dr Gerald Robotnik, so Eggman did have other relatives around.

"You seem to be deep in thought." Bunny said breaking him out of his trance.

"Well, yeah, I've heard the name Robotnik before. Have any of you heard about a Dr Gerald Robotnik?"

"Gerald, nope never heard of him. The one we've been fighting is Snively Robotnik." Sally said

"I see, so can you describe him for me?" Tails was going to get as much information he could from these two that he could.

"Short, really thin hair on the top of his head, long nose, he took over his uncle Julians' city after the madman disappeared." Sally described.

"Good riddance to the fhat man and his damned Roboticizer too, neither one'll be missed." At Bunnies comment it was now Sallies turn to be solemn as that also seemed to be a sore subject for her. "Oh, sorry Sally girl, ah didn't mean to bring that up."

"It's okay Bunny, it was a long time ago and doesn't phaze me any more."

"Okay, I'm missing something here, what happened and…" Tails was cut off as a cold metal hand covered his mouth.

"Never you mind." Bunny said.

"Ack, that's cold. I was just going to ask what happened." Tails said backing up from Bunny.

"Well, you see, a long time ago we were a peaceful and advanced kingdom. That was until two humans arrived, Julian and Snively, they said their last names were Kintobor and they wanted to help advance the rest of the world with the help of the chaos emeralds that the royal family had been trusted to protect. What we didn't know was that they were really planning on using them to take over and enslave the world. The two with the help of our greatest scientific minds developed several revolutionary devices and the two carted several out of the city claiming to use them to help the outside world. But in truth they were just stock piling them and before we knew it there was a coup de gra and my family was over thrown. Robotnik then turned our greatest progress against us, a machine we thought would make a great contribution to the medical field it scanned tissue and then rearranged molecules to turn living flesh into robotic components and back again, it was called the Roboticizer. We couldn't ever give it enough power to turn more than just a small part of the body mechanical, but with the power of the chaos emeralds he made it so that it could turn a whole person into a robot in a single shot, that was the fate of more than two thirds of the kingdom." Sally explained and Tails couldn't help but look over at Bunny and remember her comment.

'Well Ah never, this is my actual left arm thank you very much, and twas no accident that made it what it is' the comment was still so fresh and now he understood what she was saying.

'So that is what she meant, her arm must have gone through that process.' "Sounds painful." Tails said sympathetically.

"Naught really, at least, so ahv been told from othas that had it duhn to them befoa Robotnik got his hands ohn it ahnd got rid of the reverse and anesthetic devices." Bunny explained.

"Oh, so what happened?" Tails was genuinely curious now about what happened to such a device, Sally simply turned and walked away.

"She's still a little shook up about it all, yall see. Ah was captured ahnd about ta be turned into a robot myself when her fiancée broke into the thang. He distracted Robotnik while the othahs broke me out. During the fight something got smashed and the whole place went beserk, mah left arm and legs were still inside of the thang when it powered up one last tahm. When everything was said and done both he, Robotnik, and the chaos emeralds were gone and my arm and legs were robotic." It was now bunnies turn to speak about what was going on.

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear about that. Were they close?"

"They were…"

"Bunny, Enough, we have to get back to knothole. It was nice meeting you Tails, but we have to go, please be careful or you might get caught again." Sally said while walking into the forest, not bothering to look back.

"Alright, and thanks for saving me." He said as Bunny turned to wave good bye to the young kid.

'That was informative, maybe I could get Sonic and the others to give them a helping hand.' Tails thought solemnly, looking around he spotted a plume of smoke in the distance and after flying up a bit he noticed it was the rash site of Eggmans module, as quickly as he could he rushed towards it while keeping an eye open for any of his friends.

(Moves for Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Rouge, and Shadow are the same as in any other sonic game.)

They weren't doing so well, shortly after the first craft had left with Tails inside of it several others had shown up and dropped two dozen more of the robots onto the small group. Of all the people there Rouge's attacks were the least effective, bombs seemed to have no effect other than discoloring them a little, so she had to resort to martial arts to keep from being a burden, shortly after was Knuckles, though much stronger then Rouge, his attacks mostly only dented or scratched their super strong armor, Shadow was next in line, he had taken down only one of the robots, even his special ammunition wasn't enough to pierce their thick armor and to make things worse the way it was angled forced the bullets to always ricocheted, but he found a weakness in the joints, and even though only on robot had fallen by his hand so far, there were 2 others he had badly damaged.

Sonic wasn't doing so bad, though much of what he had been doing was knocking them down and forcing them to fire on themselves he had at least 4 busy. Surprisingly Amy had the biggest advantage, every time they tried to surround her she would perform a spin with her hammer and knock them all back, and the force her piko piko delivered on impact had already crushed the heads of two forcing them to collapse, and crushed the chests of two others. Six of the remaining were currently trying to capture her as she bashed them apart almost as if they were nothing more than cheap action figures.

"Damn, they just won't stay down. What the hell are these things." Rouge growled watching as one she had knocked over by placing bombs on it's knees stand back up.

"Some thing you don't wanna meet in a dark alley." Knuckles said punching one in its dome shaped head laving a large dent, smiling as it finally seemed to go down, only to spring back up in an attempt to capture the red Echidna. "Come on, break already."

"I cant believe that something like this could be a match for me, the Ultimate Life form." Shadow was out of his special bullets and was now loading regular bullets into his pistols.

"Yeah they are a pain aren't they? So hurry up and take the last module and get out of WHOA!" Sonic was taken by surprise as Amy's hammer crushed the Sabot in front of him like a tin can.

"Don't you even say it Sonic, and after this you can treat me to a date got it?" She said rather forcefully before moving onto the next Robot, she alone had disposed of nearly half the Swat bots so far as only eight were left standing by this time.

While Amy was distracted crushing yet another Sabot with her hammer, a second had trained it's laser on her and was about ready to fire when suddenly it was picked up, the beam barely missing the pink hedgehog, the Sabot struggled against the individual who had lifted it off the ground and they seemed happy to let it go, dropping the grey robot into the flaming wreck of Eggmans carrier.

"Tails, oh man I thought you were done for." Sonic said relieved to see his little buddy.

"I almost was, but I was saved by some locals." Tails said and in the mean time Amy and Shadow finished destroying the remaining robots, the strange egg shaped carriers that brought them having disappeared. "Hey, I have a favor to ask of you Sonic."

"Sure what is it little buddy?" Sonic said putting how he got out behind the fact that he was back.

"Well, I talked with the people who rescued me, it seems that they are in trouble, since we've helped out so many other people I was hoping we could do the same for them." Tails said looking hopefully at his idolized Hero.

"Sorry bud, but we have more important things to take care of right now, we can't let Eggman escape with those emeralds." Sonic said coldly and turned to Shadow and Rouge. "What are you two going to do?"

"We have to report into GUN now that the egg carrier has been destroyed." Shadow summarized.

"Ok, Go ahead and take that thing, we will finish tracking down Eggman on foot, if you can see about coming back here and helping the locals." Sonic suggested, before there could be too much objection her turned to the rest of his friends. "Things are going to be allot more dangerous from here on out and I cant guarantee any of you will live, if you want out, I won't hold it against you."

"No way Sonic, you helped me out so many times I can't just abandon you now." Knuckles replied holding out his fist.

"Where you go Sonic, I will follow." Amy said standing proudly and holding her hammer like it was nothing.

"That's nice to know." Sonic said nervously then turned to Tails. "Well little bud, are you coming, or going?"

"I, I'll come Sonic, but please promise me that when we have all the emeralds that we will come back and help these people." Tails said looking up at his hero expectantly.

"Sure thing bud, but we need to get the emeralds back first, so lets do it to it." Sonic said grabbing knuckles and Tails took hold of Amy's hands and the four raced away in the direction of the Egg shell.

This concept actually came to me in a dream, no I'm not shitting you I'm serious, I dreamt it was going to be a movie special and I was trying to record it, turned into a nightmare when the recorder didn't record the show though and I couldn't get it to work at all though. NE ways, hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'll see you next one.


End file.
